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Monday, January 30, 2017

Washington, Jan 30 (PTI) NASAs new space-based radio system can track aircraft in real time across the globe, an advance that could make air travel safer and ensure that flights can be quickly located in case of mishaps.

NASAs powerful radio communications network allows us to receive data such as pictures of cryovolcanoes on Pluto - or tweets from astronauts aboard the International Space Station (ISS).

However, to send larger quantities of data back and forth faster, NASA engineers wanted higher-frequency radios that can be reprogrammed from a distance using software updates.

"A reconfigurable radio lets engineers change how the radio works throughout the life of any space mission," said Thomas Kacpura, Advanced Communications Programme manager at NASAs Glenn Research Centre in the US.

"It can also be upgraded to work better with future missions or to enhance performance, just by adding new software," said Kacpura.

NASA worked with US-based technology company Harris Corporation to design and develop a new reconfigurable, higher-bandwidth radio.

The radios will be used to create the first space-based global air traffic control system.

For decades, airplanes have relied on radar surveillance via land-based radar stations. That is left huge gaps - particularly over oceans - where air traffic controllers have no real-time information.

To compensate, pilots file detailed flight plans and are required to remain within prescribed lanes at different altitudes so air traffic controllers can estimate where they are and work to ensure there are no mid-air collisions.

However, that may change when a constellation of 66 satellites goes into orbit equipped with the new radios.

The radios are programmed to receive signals from new airplane transceivers called ADS-B, which automatically send out a flights number, location, heading and other details.

"Within seconds you can keep track of all the aircraft in the world," said Harris systems engineer Jeff Anderson.

With real-time global tracking, planes can fly with less space between them and take more direct routes.

"It tremendously improves public safety and potentially saves a lot of fuel costs, because you no longer have to remain in the particular airline traffic lanes," Anderson said.

If something goes wrong, search and rescue teams will have detailed information on where the plane was last spotted.

Thursday, January 26, 2017

HIGHLIGHTS

The device can be implanted in the abdomen and will be powered by the heart, it is designed to filter the blood and perform other kidney functions

Artificial kidney has a membrane that filters the blood and a bio-reactor comprising living kidney cells that are exposed to the blood during dialysis

CHENNAI: Thousands of people with chronic kidney disease now being kept alive by dialysis machines that tie them to a hospital bed for hours will be enormously relieved when a fist-sized artificial kidney hits the market, possibly by the end of the decade.

The device being engineered in the US will go through a series of safety and efficacy trials on hundreds of patients in that country before it is approved by the FDA, University of California San Francisco researcher Dr Shuvo Roy, co-inventor of the device, said at the Tanker annual charity and awards night on Wednesday.

The device that can be implanted in the abdomen and will be powered by the heart is designed to filter the blood and perform other kidney functions, including production of hormones, and help assist in blood pressure control, he told a hall filled with doctors, paramedics and patients. Unlike conventional haemodialysis, which merely filters toxins from the blood, the artificial kidney has a membrane that filters the blood and a bio-reactor comprising living kidney cells that are exposed to the blood during dialysis. "It performs the job of a kidney more holistically than just conventional dialysis," he said.

The final stage of chronic kidney disease, called end-stage renal disease, is when the kidneys are no longer able to remove enough wastes and excess fluids from the body. At this point, patients are put on dialysis, sometimes up to three times a week, as a bridge to transplant. Increasing incidence of diabetes and hypertension has been pushing up chronic kidney disease among many patients.

At least 2.5 lakh people in India die due to kidney diseases every year. Diabetes and high blood pressure are the two most common causes and account for most cases. The cost of treating end-stage kidney disease through dialysis or a kidney transplant is enormous.

Governor Urjit Patel has the professional qualifications, but he seems to have lacked the competence of Raghuram Rajan to ward off political pressure.

Till the 17th century, money was mostly commodity money such as gold or silver, which was prized by most people and, hence, had a known ascribable value. This became the basis of exchanges of goods and services among people. Since metal coins were not always easy to carry and as transactions became bigger and many, the merchants started issuing promissory notes against them. To bring order into this system, the states evolved central banks to regulate and monitor the system.

Soon, central or designated banks became the sole issuers of such paper or notes. Even though valued commodities like gold and silver were the physical collateral on the basis of which these notes were issued, the credibility of the note issuer was central to its success. It soon evolved that more than the collateral, the credibility of the central bank was crucial to ensure that it could issue notes way beyond the value of the gold and silver held in its vaults. This system became so enshrined and as the credibility of central banks kept rising, it was inevitable that the direct linkage to gold and silver ended.

Even the residual linkage ended one day in 1974 when United States President Richard Nixon delinked the dollar from bullion. Soon, other central banks followed suit and the value promised was mostly related to the dollar, and trust and credibility were the only collateral against which people and associations transacted with their notes – money. In this way, the trust in the words on every multi-denomination rupee, “I promise to pay the bearer the sum of...”, is it’s only worth.

The original objective of central banking was monetary and financial stability. Following the Great Depression, a severe economic crisis that started in the United States and spread across the world in the 1930s, and the post-war Keynesian revolution, macroeconomic stability became the main objective. Even more so when gold was not the anchor to prevent value from drifting. Thus, credibility mattered even more.

The great fall

India’s central bank, the Reserve Bank of India, came into being on April 1, 1935. The general superintendence and direction of the Reserve Bank is entrusted with a 21-member Central Board of Directors: the governor, four deputy governors, two Finance Ministry representatives, 10 government-nominated directors to represent important elements from India’s economy, and four directors to represent local boards headquartered at Mumbai, Kolkata, Chennai and New Delhi. This spread of representation is meant to ensure that all sectoral and regional interests are considered in its policy making.

Inevitably, a degree of political patronage soon began emerging in the choice of persons on the Reserve Bank’s board. Some clear undesirables managed to get in due to political patronage, but the professional stature of the governors ensured that extraneous considerations were filtered out and even the government was kept at an arms length from the institution. This kept intact the vestment of professional credibility that is so integral to its everyday stewardship of the nation’s macroeconomic situation and control over the banking sector.

But it seems to have slipped somewhat from that lofty perch after the departure in 2016 of former governor Raghuram Rajan, who returned to his tenured faculty position at the University of Chicago’s vaunted economics department. I personally think Rajan preferred to keep the Reserve Bank’s and his own credibility intact rather than bow down to political directions.

To be sure, Rajan’s successor and current Reserve Bank governor Urjit Patel has the professional qualifications, but the stature and competence needed to ensure the nation’s continued trust and to stave off unwanted and even incompetent pressures mostly comes only with time, and often never at all. Consider this. A secretary-level official of the government of India headed the selection committee that chose him to this exalted position. It is important not to forget that while the Reserve Bank is a part of government, it must not be seen as a creature of the government that does as told.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi is not only a social radical but somewhat of an economic radical also. He has a well-known propensity to impose his will on others, and as long as it works, it seems good. Even the gods are known to be fallible. Hence, in an open political and market-driven economic system government by fiat is undesirable and near impossible. But in this case, it has clearly boomeranged. Instead of being a swift surgical strike, it turned into a carpet-bombing of many vital sectors of the economy.

Lost forever?

This clearly begs the question as to what the custodian of our financial integrity and macroeconomic stability, the Reserve Bank of India, was doing when the axe descended on the nation? Clearly, it was not a part of the decision. It was peremptorily ordered to do what was done in its name. The pretence of the Reserve Bank deciding this step was clearly abandoned when the prime minister personally made his dramatic announcement on November 8 last year.

Demonetisation is an extreme step. It usually happens when an economy has become chaotic and is on the verge of financial anarchy, and/or when values of currency plummet. Runaway hyperinflation is a typical condition when the bitter medicine of demonetisation is administered. By demonetisation, you strip a currency of its utility as legal tender. As we saw not very long ago in countries like Russia, where multiples of the old ruble were reissued as new rubles.

Demonetisation when inflicted on an economy that is relatively orderly and growing, as it was in India, becomes an act of vandalism to disrupt it. Even if the pile-up of high-denomination notes with some people and their integrity was a cause for concern, less disruptive means were available. For a start, the exchange of old Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 notes could have been more orderly by giving people a comfortable period of time for this.

Suppose we had fixed May 30, 2017 as the cut-off date for the exchange of old notes with new notes, most if not all the cash in the parallel economy would have still come to the banks with the required details of the depositor. This would have ensured the orderly withdrawal of old notes and their replacement with new ones without the collapse of economic order that we have recently seen. Of course, we will get out of it. But what is lost is lost forever.

And the problem is that much more has been lost. The Reserve Bank of India has lost a good deal of its most prized asset – credibility. What is a holder of a rupee supposed to think of the worth of the Reserve Bank governor’s promise to pay the bearer a promised sum on presentation at any place where such notes are meant to be exchanged? Clearly, the Reserve Bank governor has lost face and the institution has had its credibility whittled down.

Mohan Guruswamy heads the Centre for Policy Alternatives, New Delhi, an independent and privately funded think-tank. He is also a Distinguished Fellow at the Observer Research Foundation, New Delhi

In a unique and peaceful protest, over 5,000 mostly young pro-Jallikattu people gathered on Chennai’s Marina beach last week.

Pongal, an important Tamil harvest festival, was celebrated last weekend. It is a three-day festival that begins with the sun’s annual six-month progression to the north (uttaraayanam) and ends with Matu Pongal or cow pongal. On this day, cattle are recognized, decorated and worshipped. For centuries, this day has also involved the widespread rural game of Jallikattu.

Jallikattu is a sport that involves the release of a bull through a narrow corridor called vadi vaasal into an arena of men. The objective of these men is to hold onto the pronounced hump of the bos indicus bull. By so doing, they give Jallikattu its alternate name Eru Thazhuvuthal—literally meaning “embrace the bull”.

Some people believe that the sport was codified in the tablets from the Indus Valley civilization. Others trace it back to specific references in Sangam literature going back to 300 BC.

This ancient sport finds itself today embroiled in a major controversy. On the one hand, animal rights organizations such as the Animal Welfare Board of India (AWBI) and People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (Peta) believe that the sport should be banned on account of alleged cruelty to bulls both before and during the “fight”.

On the other hand, Jallikattu supporters say that it is a tradition—one that doesn’t generally harm the bull—that should survive for a variety of reasons.

The Supreme Court waded into this with a ban on the sport in 2014. Based on petitions put forward by AWBI and Peta, a two-judge bench considered the issue under the rights of animals under the Constitution, culture, laws, tradition and religion and examined both Jallikattu and bullock cart races in Tamil Nadu and Maharashtra. It applied the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Act (PCA), 1960 and struck down the Tamil Nadu Jallikattu Regulation Act, 2009 as repugnant (subsidiary) to the PCA under Section 254(1) of the Constitution.

The case for the ban was carefully documented and legally precise. The defence was weak. The Supreme Court bench upheld the petition.

The subsequent government of India executive order allowing the sport was stayed. The ban continues.

In a unique (no politicians were allowed) and peaceful protest, over 5,000 mostly young pro-Jallikattu people gathered on Chennai’s Marina beach last week. To the argument about tradition and culture they have now added both a nuanced economic argument and a bio-diversity based argument that makes the case for indigenous species of bulls.

In a long article written in scroll.in, Himakiran Anugula makes a passionate case that the five remaining native cattle breeds in Tamil Nadu—Kangayam, Pulikulam, Umbalachery, Barugur and Malai Maadu—require a sport like Jallikattu for their very survival because indigenous breeds do not produce as much milk as artificially inseminated hybrids and this results in them being sent straight to the abbatoir.

The Kangayam breed is native to western Tamil Nadu and most often used in Jallikattu. The economic argument states that cattle are assets and the best return to this asset comes from its multiple use including its use in the sport. Among young male calves of these indigenous breeds, the sturdiest studs are selected for Jallikattu and the others are castrated and sent to plough the fields or find themselves in the slaughterhouse.

The Jallikattu controversy is unlikely to be resolved in a simple way. In a sensational headline, a regional newspaper termed the latest Marina Beach protest as “Tamil Nadu’s Tahrir Square style Arab Spring”.

The PCA Act is pretty clear and the Supreme Court has acted within the law’s current mandate. Prima facie, the Supreme Court seems to have applied settled law and it does not appear to be a case of judicial overreach.

In response to the massive protest the state government acted swiftly and promulgated an ordinance that has been signed by the governor. Under 213(1) of the Constitution this can be done when the Legislative Assembly is not in session. It will need to passed in the state legislature within six months.

Given that prevention of cruelty to animals is a concurrent subject under Schedule Seven of the Constitution, it has further been recommended to the President by the traditionalist federal government to secure constitutional remedy under Section 254(2)—under this section the state may enact legislation that is contrary (legally called repugnant) to national law if it receives the favourable consent of the President of India.

Since the Supreme Court has already ruled on the matter it is quite likely that the subject will come up again for judicial review and the conflict will not end here.

An India divided on modernist/traditionalist lines is likely to see many other areas of conflict come to the fore—from the (equal) rights of women to sancta sanctora of temples and mosques, Section 377 that deals with same-sex relationships and more regional issues that are based on language or ethnic identity.

The judiciary can only interpret law that is already on the books. Most will need political solutions, including new or amended laws.

P.S.: “The greatness of a nation and its moral progress can be judged by the way its animals are treated,” said Mahatma Gandhi. “Ban biryani not Jallikattu”, says actor Kamal Hassan.